Sarah Palin's Alaska

Sarah Palin's Alaska: "

Sarah Palin's Alaska—like Palin herself—is a freeloading fraud.

For decades, Alaskans have lived off federal welfare. Taxpayers' money subsidizes everything from Alaska's roads and bridges to its myriad programs for Native Americans. Federal funding accounts for one-third of Alaskan jobs. Nevertheless, Alaskans love to think of themselves as the last frontiersmen, the inhabitants of a land 'beyond the horizon of urban clutter,' a state with no use for Washington and its wicked ways.

Though they are usually not bothered by this contradiction, in the recent Senate race, Alaska's split personality finally split the Alaskan Republican Party. The party's official candidate, Joe Miller, campaigned as the candidate for the Alaska of would-be rugged individuals. Although endorsed by Sarah Palin and the Tea Party Express, Miller proved an exceptionally poor choice for this role. He said all the right things about fiscal insanity, the repeal of Obamacare, lower taxes and slashing welfare spending. But like many of his comrades in arms, he gave no specifics and offered no plan for how to reach fiscal sanity or replace Obamacare. During the campaign, it also emerged that he had once collected farm subsidies; that his wife had once collected unemployment benefits; and that his family had received state health benefits. Perhaps it's just hard for Alaskans to avoid feeding from the federal trough.

Democrats could expose the fraud that is Sarah Palin—and the scam that is Alaska—by demanding that Alaska reject all federal funds, tighten its belt, live within its means, make ends meet, stop palling around with our federal tax dollars, you betcha, momma grizzlies, tweet tweet. Says Sullivan:

Imagine if the Democrats had minimal political talent (I know, but bear with me). Instead of buying into Palin's bullshit, they'd reveal who she actually is: a delusional former socialist who was content to have a third of her state's citizens on the federal payroll. Layer after layer of the Palin onion contain fantasy, lies, and fraud. She is a phony.

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